After conducting multiple interviews, it became clear I need to work on how I define a public space.
I am trying to look at the balance between pedestrians and drivers, and the issues therein, which I noticed while wandering to town and country. After initially wanting to focus my project on town and country, it became clear I needed to modify my scope. After discussing with Glenn, I chose to focus instead on public spaces as defined in my previous note. I performed interviews focusing on that definition, but ended up noticing that the issues I had noticed at town and country were not present at most of the places that the definition fit.
New Definition of Public Space
This project focuses on public spaces — such as shopping centers, strip malls, or downtown streets — that need to balance the needs of pedestrians and drivers. For instance, at a downtown street (such as University Avenue), the design of the street, parking, and sidewalks need to balance the needs of through traffic, parking, biking, public transit, and walking. This is a complicated problem with a number of tradeoffs, and not every public space can do everything.